Cycle of Life
by turbomagnus
Summary: Sometimes, the timeline just refuses to be changed.


Disclaimer: The disclaimer telling you that I don't own "Smallville" or any related characters and situations, that they are instead the property of DC Entertainment, and that I use them without permission or intent to profit is currently caught up in a temporal causality loop. As soon as it realises its situation and breaks free, it will be happy to tell you all of that, but until then enjoy the story.

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"Cycle of Life"  
By J.T. Magnus, 'Turbo'

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"The reins of history back in the hands of Man." - Doctor Cid, 'Final Fantasy XII'.

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Professor Thomas O. Morrow's 'Future-Viewer' was a wonderful creation, especially when it was used to look into the past and learn from it rather than merely stealing ideas from the future. When combined with the telescope created by another scientist by the name of Doctor Ellison that was powerful enough to reach into other galaxies, the possibilities became, as cliche as it sounded, almost limitless. When both were in the hands of a mind like that of Lex Luthor, 'almost' faded into memory and 'limitless' became the operative word. For all the words that could be used to describe Luthor, 'stupid' or any synonym thereof was not on the list.

It happened the same way every time he watched it; the planet would undergo seismic upheaval, the ship would be launched, the planet would explode and pieces would be caught in the ship's wake and pulled along with it on its way to Earth. On its way to deliver The Alien to interfere with lives and matters that he had no place to as though it were some kind of divine right for him to be Humanity's 'protector', 'guardian' and 'guide'. As if Humanity needed his protection and guidence as though they were a race of children. What had The Alien's race's supposedly advanced knowledge and technology gotten them besides destroyed, wiped out down to one 'Last Son', and he claimed he was here to 'help' humanity... That kind of condenscending help Humanity did not need, and The Alien even had the gall to claim he fought for 'truth, justice and the American Way'. The truth was that Luthor had yet to see one shred of proof that The Alien was even in the United States legally, much less that he was a resident or citizen with any claim to the 'American Way'. It just just another example of The Alien's arrogance and sense of self-entitlement as far as Luthor was concerned. Humanity didn't need the 'protection' and 'guidence' of The Alien, Humanity could protect and guide itself to the future it deserved with the technology, intellect and drive that taken it from the Dark Ages to the Atomic Age in only a handful of centuries. It only needed something to keep it putting those factors to use rather than simply resting on its laurals, what it needed was the firm hand of one of the greatest minds Earth had ever produced, Luthor himself. And now, thanks to Professor Morrow and Doctor Ellison, Luthor had discovered a way to give Humanity what it need, to remove what it didn't. It would be a glorious new dawn, ensuring that not alien, not even Homo Meta or Homo Magi, but Homo Sapiens - Humanity itself - would be the dominant power on Earth for years to come.

It was the little things, Luthor mused, the smallest cogs, the little hinges, the horseshoe nail that loses a kingdom. The Alien had become a symbol, a rallying point for those like him who believed that they had some form of sacred right or duty to interfere with Humanity because they were 'heroes' instead of letting Humanity rise or fall on its own as they should. As Luthor himself had risen on his own. Remove The Alien and his jingoistic self-promotion and others like him would be ignored as fools or, even better, outcasts for meddling in affairs not theirs in which to meddle. Luthor had a cold smile on his face as he picked up a device from the nearby workbench and held it at the opening to Morrow's invention. Using his free hand to enter in the command, the invention moved its focus backwards in time, back to the beginning of the events in which Luthor was interested, the moment The Alien's rocket was launched. As it had time after time before, the ship launched as the planet's seismic activity escalated to the critical point. Soon the planet would explode and the ship would generate the artificial wormhole that would bring it, the meteor rocks that were once a planet and The Alien himself to Earth. Carefully, Luthor pushed the device he held through the invention's aperture and across time and space, into the rocket's path. As the rocket approached, the first stage of the device activated, the magnet at one end pulling it towards the rocket until they touched and the magnet held them fast together. That was when the second stage, the rocket engines at the other end of the device, came online. Slowly, the device began to push The Alien's rocket off-course; with the resistance from the rocket's own navigation and stablization systems it was only by millimeters. Millimeters at the start, however, would translate to a difference of millions of miles, if not a difference on the scale of light-years, in the final destination.

Then the planet exploded. Luthor watched through the combination of Morrow and Ellison's inventions as the shockwave and debris from the planet's destruction reached the rocket. If the rocket had been on its original, proper course, the shockwave would have accelerated it to the point where the wormhole generator would reach its activation parameters. Instead, the device had altered the rocket's course just enough that when the shockwave reached the rocket, it sent it tumbling wildly through space...

Far away and in the future, Luthor looked proudly on what he had wrought, a small chuckle growing to victorious laughter until the moment when he vanished in a flash of light as the timeline changed by his actions...

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In the new timeline...

Tess Mercer looked at the collection of gravestones, unsure of what she was supposed to be feeling. The discovery that she was the last blood Luthor and heir to that family's wealth and businesses had been accidental, the result of a blood test for a job being done by the same laboratory that was handling claims for the Metropolis Probate Court in relation to the Luthor estate and a sharp-eyed lab technician who had noticed the matching genetic markers between Tess and Lionel Luthor that indicated a paternal link. If she were a superstitious person, she'd wonder if the Luthor family were cursed. One son died as an infant, wife and mother Lillian Luthor had died in a lunatic asylum, the surviving son died in a car accident only a few years before a former business partner had killed Lionel himself over some kind of mirrored box. It made her wonder if she had been meant to die as well, as violently as every other Luthor seemed to have done.

Or as pointlessly in one case; Alexander 'Lex' Luthor's was like a bad highway safety video - complete with drunk driving, using a cell phone while he was doing it, speeding and going off a bridge into a river. The irony was that it wasn't the accident itself that killed him, the accident merely knocked him unconscious. If someone had been there to witness the accident and react, he might have survived, but without anyone there and with him unconscious and still restrained by his seatbelt, Lex had drowned. Drunk, speeding and talking on a cell phone, it really did sound like an over-elaborate driver's ed video.

Tess was still lost in her thoughts when there was a flash of light and the world changed around her.

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In the new timeline...

Every time Lex Luthor watched the chain of events using the combination of Doctor Ellison's galactic telescope and Professor Morrow's 'future viewer' they happened the same way; the planet would undergo seismic upheaval, the ship would be launched, the planet would explode and pieces would be caught in the ship's wake and pulled along with it on its way to Earth...

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In another place, a place outside of space and time, a figure opened their eyes, blinking and breathing hard as they did so.

"Water," they requested, their voice cracking slightly, "Please."

Another figure handed them a small glass of water and waited for a moment until the first person had drank half of it before they spoke, "What did you see?"

The first figure stared at the liquid that remained in the glass as they answered, "Some things, no matter how much some might attempt to, cannot - and will not - be changed. They will always find a way to happen. Even if it means a timeline refuses to splinter and instead keeps repeating itself until it gets things right."

"A 'Temporal Causality Loop'?" The second figure asked.

"Among other names, yes..." The first figure raised the glass to their lips and downed the rest of its contents, "Otherwise known as 'proof God wants me to have headaches' and 'the reason I help keep Asprin in business'..."

"Will it be like that every time once I've learned to control it?"

"Only if you force it - something, coincidently, I don't actually recommend, Dulmer... Not if you just let it come."

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Author's Note: In the original draft, Luthor was going to throw a wrench in the works with a literal wrench, but I couldn't figure out how that would divert the rocket, so it was replaced with a magnetic mine instead.


End file.
